


This is all we get

by consultingbeekeepers



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, POV John Watson, Pining, Post-Reichenbach, Romance, Scars, The Empty Hearse fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 12:54:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingbeekeepers/pseuds/consultingbeekeepers
Summary: Sherlock is dead, but John still sees him everywhere. When John is awake, Sherlock is in the back of his head; when he's asleep, he appears in his dreams. Although the nightmares of his fall prevail at first, the atmosphere of his dreams changes eventually, revealing a part of Sherlock John wishes he'd been able to explore when he was still alive.When he's not touching John in his dreams, he appears out of nowhere in his daily routine, during his dates with Mary, and even when they're in bed together. As nice as it is to still be surrounded by him, he just never shuts up.





	This is all we get

**Author's Note:**

> Hello dearest readers!
> 
> Amidst the ton of work I actually should be doing, I was inspired by this headcanon on [tumblr](http://jupitereyed.tumblr.com/post/171339617720/jupitereyed-so-do-we-all-honestly-think-john-had/) . 
> 
> What first started out as a simple idea that I played with in my head soon became something I couldn't stop thinking about anymore and then turned into this 16k fic within only 3 days. Don't ask me how. I have no idea. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy what jupitereyed inspired me to write. I certainly had a lot of fun on this emotional rollercoaster! Thank you Ankita (love-in-mind-palace) and Beatriz (gelos) for helping me when I was stuck. You are the best! Enjoy <3

 

John doesn’t know when it started. The turning point. The point when, in his dreams, he stopped hearing the shattering of his flatmate's skull on the pavement, when he stopped seeing the blood-covered face – the contrast of crimson on parchment skin would have delighted any artist, but to John it meant not only death but also total devastation, downfall and decay – when he stopped hearing his own screams, desperation tasting bitter on his tongue as he hoped so badly that his distress, his need, his dying hope would reach Sherlock's ears, change his mind, make him turn around on his heels and jump down from the little step that separated reckless rooftop visitors, who stood too close to the edge, from their demise in a careless moment.

Sherlock didn’t turn.

Instead, the smartphone screen crashed into a thousand pieces when it hit the ground – not unlike John's heart when his owner's body landed on the hard pavement.

He knew it was physically impossible to hear his bones shatter. Some bloody cyclist, who wasn't capable of using his eyes apparently, had incapacitated him. He had hit his head on the asphalt; everything was buzzing, raw around the edges, spinning. He still cannot recall how he managed to walk to Sherlock in the end. He felt like collapsing on the ground again and again and again, stumbling more than once. But he had to be sure. There was this tiny ray of hope inside his chest – a spark of hope that anything was possible, thanks to this incredible man who had made so many miracles happen in John's life – that he was still alive. That somehow – despite the impact of hitting the ground from almost 20 metres above – he was still breathing, still a part of John's world, that he could tell him they were going to be all right, that Jim Moriarty cannot break them, despite what he had seemed to accomplish so far, that he needed him. God, he needed him …

_“Sherlock … God, yes, Sherlock …”_

He doesn't know how it happened, but the nightmares subsided gradually. He doesn't know if these dreams are necessarily more pleasant, though, either.

They still have him wake up in sweat, but …

This is different.

_“God, yes like this, ahh!”_

It had started innocently. John smiles sadly at the memory. Innocent. Was anything about Sherlock innocent? Lots of things were. Others were not. He shakes his head, not wanting to dwell on it.

He had seen him everywhere. The reminders _were_ , in fact, _everywhere_. In the flat that he'd had to leave before Sherlock was even buried, before the funeral. In the specific smell that his experiments had left, the scent of Sherlock's cologne in the bathroom and his ridiculously expensive shampoo. In the scratch on their kitchen table that he never explained how it got there. In the knife stabbed to the mantelpiece. In the fireplace beneath it that was now cold, no fire burning within, no flames heating up the cold living room that had once been filled with life, clutter and disorder and deep conversations. Armchairs standing in proximity. Their feet almost touching, but not quite; warming up in front of the fire.

The violin was packed away safely in its case. John only dared to open it once, to look at it. The delicate instrument held by delicate hands and played by talented fingers. He misses the quiet evenings at home. Violin music. Tchaikovsky has been John's favourite, and if he wasn't a complete idiot, ever since he had told Sherlock about it, he had played more of his pieces. John revels in the memory.

Sherlock was never cold and unfeeling. He was the exact opposite of that. He simply chose not to let his emotions get the better of him, and they rarely did. Only sometimes. In John’s presence.

John is thankful for the small moments.

Maybe the small moments are responsible for the dreams he is having now.

_“Hmm, yes …”_

_“Like that, John?” the deep voice rumbles, low against his ear._

_“God, yes, like that, ahh … li– like that …”_

_He realises he has always underestimated_ how _talented Sherlock’s hands were. Because they find the just the right pressure, just the right amount of friction, the right amount of time for teasing until they set to work in earnest. It is bliss, this, having him this close, hovering above John's body with his arms that never looked as strong and his mouth whispering sweet nothings into his ear, his mouth that usually spits out the most hurtful insults about people's intellects. Right now, there is not a trace of this left. There are only soft lips, tender fingertips, and a skilful tongue that will send John to heaven – if such a place exists._

_“Let me touch you,” John gasps out under Sherlock’s touch. “Please, I need to feel–“_

_“No, John,” Sherlock’s voice admonishes him. Every time. Every time. “You know you can’t.”_

_“Why not?” It always makes him angry._

_“You know the reason already. Just let me do this for you,” he breathes against John’s mouth. His lips are full and gentle. John’s need for him intensifies._

_“I just want to touch you this once. I’ll never ask you again. Please, let me …”_

_“Oh, John,” Sherlock answers, his voice low and deep as his hand slowly wanders down to his groin, grazing his pebbled nipple and his belly button on the way before it disappears in his pants – too tight, too tight!_

_“You know I’m not really here.”_

_“Of course you are.” He never makes sense when they do this. He can see him, hear him, and by God!_

_Sherlock’s hand closes around his cock. He is panting now, and rock hard._

_He can feel him._

_Those nimble fingers, closing around his flesh as if they were made to touch only delicate things in this world. His thumb swirling through the leaking pre-come on the tip. John cannot contain his moans. He arches his back, meeting Sherlock’s movements as soon as his hand sets off on its journey of sending John into a different dimension._

_“I’m dead, John.”_

_“This doesn’t feel like you’re dead.”_

_The pressure is glorious._

_“I’m just in your head.”_

_“Stop talking nonsense.”_

_His foreskin glides over the head with every jerk of his hand. This is not in his head._

_This is_ not _in his head._

_“Sherlock …”_

_He is so close. So close._

_“Come up here,” he hears himself say, and Sherlock complies, but doesn’t stop moving his hand._

_He reaches out to touch Sherlock's face, to bring him closer, bring his lips against his own. Sherlock's lips rest against John's mouth for the briefest of moments, and John cannot suppress the urge to card his hands through those curls. He has always longed to do this, and now he can, he just has to ––_

_“No, no!”_

_Sherlock’s frame vanishes under his grip. “Stay, please.”_

_“I told you not to touch me,” Sherlock replies, and his voice sounds wistful. “I keep telling you.”_

_“Please don’t leave,” John breathes, trying to grab him somewhere, anywhere, the hem of his shirt, his arms, his face. It makes him vanish in front of his eyes even more quickly. What has he done?_

_“Come back, Sherlock. Come back to me. Please …”_

_“I am always with you, John. Don’t you forget that.”_

_“No.” A sob breaks free from John’s chest. He cannot hold them back anymore. “No …”_

He wakes with a start, shaking from anger, desperation and arousal. His erection makes itself known painfully in his pants. His hand has already travelled down there. All he has to do is …

“Fuck …”

Sherlock never stays to get him off. He always disappears before John can. He brings him so close, but John continually makes the same mistake in his dreams. He reaches out to touch him. 

But is it really a mistake? To want to reach out for what he did not _dare_ to reach out for when Sherlock was still alive? Although he had known back then, although he had _planned_ back then to make a _move_ , to _tell_ Sherlock what he felt once this Moriarty mess would be over …

He never got the chance.

Is it truly a sin to reach for him now? Now that he is so close, within his reach, why is he not allowed to touch? To hold and to cradle.

He imagines Sherlock’s hand when he brings himself close to the edge. Those long, dexterous fingers around his aching cock. He doesn’t remember the last time he was so aroused, but that doesn’t matter. 

Sherlock’s voice is in his ear, and he can still feel the breath of cool air against the shell of his ear, making his skin prickle and spreading goosebumps all over his body.

 _“Like that?”_ Sherlock keeps whispering in his mind.

 _‘You know exactly how_ ,’ John wants to say, but Sherlock is gone, so it does not matter. Trying to re-enter the same dream never works, so he has given up trying.

He is _so_ close.

But then he lets go of himself and reaches for his pants, tugging them down and off to have better access. He pulls up both knees, resting the soles of his feet flat on the mattress, letting his legs fall open as wide as he can. His pants no longer restrain him now.

He wraps his fingers around himself again, and although his own hand is not as good as Sherlock’s would be, it's all he has at his disposal at the moment. He reaches down to touch his balls, to massage them gently, to fondle them in his hands. They're already drawn up tightly, and he knows it will only take a few more jerks of his hand. There are sweat stains beneath his arms and on his chest, beads of sweat on his hairline, but all that matters is finding release, needing it so badly. Craving it from the person who dissolved with the cloud that was his dream and all he has still left is his imagination.

 _“Sherlock …,”_ he gasps out as if he could hear him, pathetic. "Ahh–“

He bucks his hips up into his fist, once, twice, thrice and again before he crashes back down, collapsing onto the mattress, spent, exhausted. Sated…?

He’ll never be sated.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

The first dreams haven’t been so … intense. The instant he saw Sherlock enter his dream, he steeled and braced himself against what was to come. No matter where the dreams started out, they always ended at the same place. The cold, wet pavement in front of Barts with the same horrid picture that would never leave John’s mind again.

Not in this lifetime.

He was standing in the doorway to their living room. John barely dreamt of the flat, so it was a surprise. A relief from the monotony. Well, not quite a relief. Dreams of Sherlock always left a dull ache once he woke up, so relief was a word with a connotation too positive.

_“Hello, John,” was all he said._

_John had looked up and turned around, looking at him with an expression so hopeful, so lost._

_"Don't do this to me again," was what he whispered over and over, wishing Sherlock would disappear and not take him back to that day, to the hospital. He couldn't face it anymore. The shell that was his life now would break soon if he kept revisiting the same place that had brought so much joy into his life back then and was now crushing it into shards. Shards that get smaller and smaller until one could no longer determine which piece fit together with which. John was close to that stage. If nobody picked him up soon, there was no putting him back together anymore._

Something odd had happened then because Sherlock truly left. John didn’t wake up. The remainder of his sleep was not peaceful and but dreamless, and that was some progress, he thought.

Sherlock kept coming back though. He looked different in his dreams. Thinner. Paler. Not like himself. John wanted to make him sit down at the kitchen table and make him eat everything he cooked. He knew Sherlock had secretly liked John’s food. No matter how appalled he looked when John dished up. He wasn’t that bad a cook, but then Sherlock always had to be dramatic first, didn't he?

_“Why did you have to jump?” John asked in the next dream. They were sitting close to the fire. In their chairs. It almost felt real._

_Sherlock looked up at him but didn’t reply. God knew what he saw in John’s eyes in that moment._

_“Why couldn’t you talk to me?” John asked then. “Why can’t you talk to me now?”_

_“I had to do it.”_

_“No, you idiot. You didn’t have to die!” John was exasperated. “You didn’t have to leave me behind and bring me close to death as well!" He never said those things to anyone when he was awake, but Sherlock deserved to know how much harm and damage he had done._

_“You’re strong, John."_

_Of course. Of course, the first time he ever complimented him without insulting him at the same time had to be in his dream!_

_Why could he never do it when he was still alive? Why was he always too proud?_

_“You’ll move on.”_

_“I don’t fucking_ want _to move on!” he shouted._

_“You will have to,” Sherlock answered, rising from his chair. “Because I am not coming back.”_

_John didn’t even realise he was crying, but he must have started some time ago because his cheeks were damp already and his vision totally blurred._

_“As if I don’t know that!” he hissed through gritted teeth. “As if I don’t know that …," he sobbed as he hunched over in his chair, burying his face in his hands._

_A hand came to rest between his shoulder blades, then. He looked up to see Sherlock’s troubled face. “I am sorry, John. Genuinely. Truly sorry. But this is all we get.”_

_When he reached out to touch Sherlock’s forearm, he disappeared like a ghost when the daylight covered the world with its rays._

He woke with his pillow thoroughly wet. Sherlock's words repeated themselves like a mantra inside his mind.

_This is all we get. This is all we get._

It did nothing to stop his tears.

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

The next time Sherlock visited him in his dreams, he sat down on the end of his bed, resting a hand on his foot. The weight felt comfortable, right. Sherlock touching him felt right.

_“If you touch me, I’ll disappear,” Sherlock muttered._

_“Why?”_

_“Because this is a dream, John. This is how dreams work,” Sherlock explained matter-of-factly._

_“Course you’d know the rules of a series of blurry images occurring while asleep that one can barely remember in the morning.”_

_“I only said you should not touch me if you want the dream to last,” Sherlock answered. John hated him. “I did not say I cannot touch you.”_

And so it began. Sherlock is undressing John and then batting his hand away when he reaches for Sherlock's buttons, doing all the work himself. Sherlock's mouth and hands and fingers bring John's dream version close the edge every night, except for those when John cannot keep his fingers to himself.

It is both bliss and agony. Mostly it is lonely – because as soon as he comes, he feels empty.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

Sherlock’s appearances are not restricted to the dreams he has at night. Daydreams are just as vivid. Sometimes, he stands in an aisle inside Tesco, debating which cereal he should buy.

 _“Not the one with the raisins,”_ an all too familiar voice whispers into his ear.

“Just because you don’t like the raisins, it does not mean I don’t,” John replies out loud. Not a good idea.

_“You don’t like the raisins.”_

“I didn’t, then, no. But maybe I do now.”

_“Some things don’t change, John. No matter how much you want them to.”_

“You told me to move on!”

People are staring at him now. Great.

He buys the one with the raisins, tries them the next morning. One spoonful is enough to take the bowl to the loo, flush it down and throw the entire carton away.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

When he meets Mary, the world seems a little brighter. If only a little. Her smile of comfort actually brings him peace, lets his mind settle and makes his reality appear a little less broken than it is.

She is a nurse, who recently started working at his clinic. He's on his way to the coffee vending machine when he walks past her, barely managing to smile at her. They greet out of politeness. It's nothing more than that. She's already almost down the hall when John kicks against the machine. "Bloody thing," he mutters, or shouts, he must have shouted because Mary is coming back. An amused grin covers her lips.

“Those things are the worst, aren’t they.” It’s not a question. “If at least the coffee tasted a little better, right?”

That actually makes John laugh. He has no idea where it comes from. He hasn’t laughed in a long time and almost forgotten what it feels like.

Perhaps that is the reason why he asks her out for a coffee later that day. “Not the crappy one in the vending machine. There’s a Harris and Hoole just around the corner. If you’re up to it.”

“Of course. Just let me grab my coat,” she smiles.

The red colour of her coat reminds him of Sherlock’s red buttonhole–– 

No. He’s moving on.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

_“She seems nice enough,” Sherlock tells him that night. “Not so dumb even though she’s blond.”_

_John can’t hold back his laugh, but it dies in his throat with Sherlock’s next question._

_“Will you replace me with her?”_

_He has no answer to that._

_“Nobody will ever come close to you …,” he sighs._

_“Then why bother?”_

_“Because someone told me to move on!”_

_Sherlock nods slowly. “Do you want to now? Move on?”_

_“I just want you to come back.”_

Bitter. Pathetic. He is pathetic.

_“Be rational, John.”_

_“It’s not my job to be rational. That’s yours.”_

_“Exactly. And this is all we get, so what do you want to do?” he asks him, edging closer, his hand already dangerously close to his crotch. It is not like he has a chance._

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

Mary is lovely. She’s beautiful. Clever. Witty. Funny. He can laugh with her without having to fake it. Well, that is a lie. Without having to fake it too often. That sounds more like the truth.

They are having dinner tonight. Fancy restaurant. Mary likes being taken out.

“Nice to get out sometimes. It’s a change to the same old daily routine,” she says.

John agrees with her.

They’re having Italian.

 _“Same as our first dinner. I’m surprised you didn’t take her directly to Angelo’s,”_ Sherlock comments. Of course, there he is. His voice is close to John’s ear. He wonders why he doesn’t just take a seat on the third chair by the table.

He has got better at not replying out loud. This is only in his head.

Only in his head.

Only––

_“You’ll take her home with you tonight, won’t you?”_

_And what if I do?_

_“You’re terrified.”_

_Shut up._

_“Terrified she will find out about the dreams you’re having.”_

_Shut. Up._

_“Well, to be fair. It is quite worrying.”_

_Then why do you keep making an appearance in my sleep?_

_“Because you want me to, John.”_

_No. I want you here. Back in this world. In flesh and blood. Alive. Not a figment of my imagination._

_“This is all we get, John.”_

_I wish you would stop saying that._

_“Take her home tonight, John.”_

_And then what? Moan your name while we have sex?_

_“That … would not be so ideal.”_

_You don’t say._

“John?” Mary says his name. He doesn’t hear it.

_“Your girlfriend is talking to you.”_

_Is she._

_"Yes. You had better pay attention if you want the night to end in your favour."_

_I just want you. I’ll always just want you …_

_“John,” Sherlock’s voice is insistent. “I already told you. This–“_

“This is all we get, yes. I know! Now shut up!”

Sherlock is gone. Mary is looking at him with wide eyes. Shit. He should say something. Explain himself. Anything. But instead, he sits there, not knowing what to say, how to explain. It’s unexplainable.

“God, I’m sorry Mary, I was– deep in thought, I didn’t–“

"It's okay, John, really. I was just asking whether we should order dessert."

And he's just told her this is all they get. Now she must think he's stingy. _Lovely job, Sherlock._

"Of course, let's order dessert. What would you like?" He forces himself to smile. She notices and takes his hand.

“Look, I know what happened to you.”

He sighs. Of course she does.

“I know you’re going through a hard time. Just take your time, all right? There’s no need to rush things. Whether it be your grief or this,” she points between the two of them. “Let’s just focus on having a quiet night. Sound good?” 

 _“She’s understanding, too. Still, I cannot acquire a taste for that hair colour. Is that champagne or golden platinum?”_ Sherlock interjects.

John closes his eyes in defeat. “Yes,” he answers, squeezing her hand. “Very good.”

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

John asks if she wants to come back to his place. In spite of Sherlock’s horrible comments. He opens the door with steady fingers.

_“Oh come on, stop telling yourself that.”_

He wants to punch him. To knock all air out of his chest, so he is left breathless and panting and quiet. Just quiet.

He closes the door behind them and pushes her up against it. Her bag falls to the floor. He can do this. He’s still got it in him. He presses his leg between hers, cups her cheek with this hand and kisses her. Hard.

Anger has always done something to him in bed. Spurred on his arousal. Though he's not sure who is responsible for said state of his body right now. Sherlock or Mary. Mary moans into the kiss and kisses back with all her might, but John takes control of the kiss. He needs this. Just a thin thread of control. However soon it might rip, and two loose ends fall to the floor.

_“You really need to prove your heterosexuality to me, don’t you? Even now that I’m dead.”_

_Shut up._

He bites into Mary’s bottom lip. Harder than necessary. But she doesn’t seem to mind, gasping out his name.

His hand wanders lower, unbuttoning her blouse and sneaking behind the soft fabric, cupping her breasts and squeezing. He somehow finds the bra catch and opens it, giving him better access.

_“You’re still in the hall, John. You don’t even want to get her into a proper bed?”_

_Shut. Your. Goddamn. Mouth._

Mary’s fingers are on his belt buckle, struggling a little in his haste.

_“I’d have undone that in less than two seconds.”_

_Well, but you’re not here._

He keeps kissing her and helps her with the buckle. She manages to undo the button of his jeans and pulls down the zipper.

He hears Sherlock applauding him slowly. He can picture the smug smile on his face and wants to kiss it off him until he doesn’t remember more than John’s name.

“John,” Mary pants. Oh yes, right. She is still here. He’s still got a job to do. Or she does. He will have to see how the night goes.

He takes her to the bedroom, pushes her onto the bed. Sherlock takes a seat on the chair close to the window.

_Into voyeurism, are we?_

_“I’m only here because you want me to, John.”_

He is right. But he cannot do anything about it. Not now. Not ever. Because Sherlock is dead, and that is an unchangeable fact.

He undresses her quickly and lets her do the same. When he is stripped down to his boxers, Sherlock has to comment.

_"You're not even wearing your ‘Fuck-Me' pants? Everything you wanted to prove to me – or yourself – tonight just went down the drain."_

_Maybe I don’t need my Fuck-Me pants to get it on with a woman, Sherlock._

_“All right, keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. But if you want to make her come, you should increase your efforts a bit.”_

He shakes his head. He cannot reply out loud. He cannot go to the chair by the window and strangle a man who isn’t even there.

Before long, they are both completely nude. Mary catches the scar on his shoulder, but John doesn't stop to let her look at it for too long, recapturing her attention by kissing her neck, collarbone and breasts. He doesn’t let her touch the scar. He doesn’t want to let anyone see that part of him.

When he thinks that Sherlock might have disappeared, he makes himself known again of course. _“Would you let me touch the scar? I always wanted to see it, and you were always careful to cover it up after showering.”_

_I would have. But then you died and missed your chance._

_“I suppose I have, yes.”_ He sounds wistful. _“Why don’t you let her touch it?”_

_Enough questions for tonight._

_“Yes, I can see you’ll be quite busy for the next five minutes. Possibly only four if we keep talking. I know my voice turns you on, John.”_

_You bastard._

_“Hmm, yes, three minutes, forty-six seconds.”_

“Jesus Christ,” he pants as he enters her.

“God, John,” Mary groans, gripping his forearms. He feels exposed. And definitely not less aroused than before.

_“Yes, keep telling yourself that.”_

_Shut up, Sherlock, for the love of God._

_“Well, I can’t apparently because if that woman makes any more noises, you’ll be flaccid in less than ten seconds. You’re not even trying, are you?”_

_I’m trying … I’m trying so hard. You have no idea._

It feels like it is never going to end.

 _"She's been remarkably quiet so far. I expected a wider skill set from Three Continents Watson. Can't you make her scream?"_ There's this wicked grin on his face. _"Didn't you want to make me scream just a few minutes ago?"_

_I wonder how large your skill set is._

_“Oh, you’d be surprised.”_ He sits there as if he’s watching a romantic comedy in the cinema. Damn that mouth.

_You should’ve surprised me when you were still alive, you idiot. You should have just kissed me and shown me what you wanted._

_“What this is my fault now? That we never–“_

_I’m a closeted bisexual man in his forties, for fuck’s sake. What did you expect?_

There’s a long silence that John doesn’t see coming.

_“Have you ever admitted this to yourself before?” Sherlock asks him._

He hasn’t. Ever. Because it was too big a truth to admit to himself and to accept. He is surprised he has made peace with the fact that he is extremely attracted to Sherlock. That it would go as far as having him arouse him and have him jerk him off in his dreams. That he would make him so hard that he cannot refrain from touching himself once he wakes up.

_Would you please just let me finish this?_

He is begging now. And all of a sudden Sherlock is just gone. He lets out a breath. It is not out of relief because Sherlock disappearing never brings a relief. The silence is suffocating, and the quiet feels as if it's choking him.

Sherlock’s voice was preferable to the wet sounds he hears now.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

He somehow managed to make it good for both of them. Or at least acceptable. One shouldn’t overplay it. Mary had curled up at his side afterwards and kissed him with a sleepy smile, not saying anything.

He looks down at her sleeping frame. She is beautiful. He is fortunate to have her in his life. Maybe they'll be a happy couple someday. Perhaps she can help him get over Sherlock because he has to. Those comments are becoming unbearable.

He wraps his arms around her and presses a kiss to her hair.

As if Sherlock cannot stand the idea of John kissing Mary's hair with the nondescript colour, he has to come back to give John yet another sleepless night.

_“Your heart was not in it, John.”_

“As if I don’t know that,” John whispers in the dark. Out loud this time.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

John met Mary in May, and now it's November already. It's been six months, and John is feeling brave tonight. He has to because moving on is painful and challenging, but he has to. Mary is kind, and she is beautiful. She is loving and caring, and she listens.

She listens to his stories about Sherlock. She is mindful when John tells her about him.

That way, Sherlock comments less on his actions and decisions, but it never stops completely. He's always there, always present. Sometimes merely in the back of his mind, sometimes he can see him standing next to him. He still dreams about him, but he’s more careful now. One night, shortly after Mary and John had become exclusive, he asked, _“do you still want me to do this?”_ His hand rested close to John’s groin again. Like so many times before.

It was ridiculous. One has no control over his dreams. It was not like he could make any conscious decisions when he was dreaming. But he had nodded and so it continued.

Whenever he woke, he was achingly hard. Not that Mary minded much, but then there were Sherlock's comments on his performance. They decreased in their frequency eventually but never disappeared altogether.

It got better with time, though, and that was an improvement. Mary improved his life, which is why she needs to stay in it. They aren't perfect. They bicker and fight, but make up again, too. Like normal people, living an ordinary life. Maybe this is what he needs. An ordinary life with someone steady by his side.

Normal people get married, don’t they? Mrs Hudson had told him that, too. After her rather emotional outbreak and her reprimanding way of telling him how inappropriate his behaviour had been.

It is the right thing to do, is what she said.

_“Married life. Boring.”_

_Shut up, Sherlock._

_“Look at you, how bored you are already. Also, that moustache is terrible.”_

John doesn’t reply and buys the ring at the jeweller’s.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

The restaurant is nice. Full of people, but nice nonetheless. Mary looks beautiful in her lilac dress. He has prepared everything; what he wants to say to her and the ring that rests heavily in the breast pocket of his tuxedo.

_“You really want to go through with this, John?”_

_Be quiet, Sherlock. Yes, I want to._

_“The best of luck for your proposal, then.”_

_Thank you. I wish it were for you._

_“This is all we get, John.”_

_Yes, I know that, and it’s not enough for me anymore. I need to do this. I need to move on._

He takes a large gulp of his glass of water. He needs something stronger, but then the rest of the evening is still ahead of him. He looks at the menu to order a good bottle of champagne, and out of nowhere, a waiter appears to help him. It doesn't surprise him that he sounds half like Sherlock. He still wants to talk him out of this, but not on John’s watch.

He is in this for the long haul. 

He downs the rest of his red wine, grimaces at the bitter taste, and tells the waiter to surprise him. He leaves, and John reaches for the little, red velvet box inside his pocket. The ring is simple but beautiful. It's Mary's taste, at least that’s what he thinks. 

Nervousness runs through his veins. It’s all he ever is these days. Nervous. He hopes he won’t make a total mess of this. Because his entire life is one at the moment, and the proposal cannot be, too. Just this once, he wants to do things the right way.

He sets the box down on the table in front of him, turns it various times. Then Mary comes back from the restrooms. The box is back in his breast pocket before he can even blink.

 _“Sure you want to marry her? You’ll have to show her the ring eventually,”_ Sherlock comments from the back of his head.

He tries to block it out and focus on Mary instead. She asks if he is okay, and he answers, ”yeah, yeah. Me? Fine. I am _fine_.”

_“Who are you trying to convince here, John? Her or yourself?”_

He had told her before dinner that he has to ask her something, and she had excused herself to go to the restroom in the best moment possible. He had only just taken the breath to pop the question, and she had to leave. His life is full of irony.

“Now, then. What did you want to ask me?” she wants to know, now that John is not ready to ask at all.

His speech is horrible, about their short time of knowing each other and how she is the best thing that could have happened to him, and then she interrupts it and agrees with him.

“I agree. I am the best thing that could’ve happened to you.”

 _“Well, that was quite a statement,”_ Sherlock commented, crossing his arms. This is all great comedy for him, apparently, but even John has to sit back a little and can’t do anything but laugh at her confidence. _“I’d never have interrupted your speech, had you been proposing to me.”_

_You’re not here. It doesn’t matter._

_“Of course it matters."_

_Of course it matters. You’re still dead._

“So, … if you’ll have me, Mary, could you see your way to …," he begins but doesn't know how to end the sentence. Can't she just say yes instead of enjoying watching him struggle?

“If you could see your way to …”

Then the waiter is back with a “vintage exceptionally to John’s liking” and destroys the situation entirely. It’s not as if anything else could go wrong. Great. The fact that his voice sounds more and more like Sherlock’s is not helping at all. Then suddenly, he removes his horn-rimmed glasses, and John looks up to tell him just to leave already when he sees him.

Sherlock.

It’s not Sherlock. It can’t be. This is just his imagination playing tricks on him. He wants him to be there so badly that his subconscious has conjured an image of his dead friend who simply cannot be standing in front of him.

John buried him. He is dead.

“Interesting thing, a tuxedo,” the man says. Why does his voice sound like Sherlock’s? Where has the Sherlock inside his head disappeared to? “Lends distinction to friends and anonymity to waiters.”

John looks at Mary, seeking confirmation whether she can see him too. Why doesn't she understand his desperation?

Tears gather in John’s eyes as he pushes back the chair and almost stumbles when he gets up. Sherlock holds out his hand as if he expects John to fall and wants to be ready to catch him. It’s been a long fall for John, and when he hit the ground, nobody has caught him. Too late for a little movement of his hand.

John looks up at Sherlock, terrified, relieved, angry.

Mary asks what is wrong, and somehow everything is.

Sherlock answers, "Short version … not dead."

Finally Mary catches on, too.

John is incapable of speaking.

Sherlock is getting nervous and starts to ramble. It’s so good to hear his voice, but what he says makes him so furious. He makes sarcastic comments to Mary’s obvious statements, and John wants to laugh and strangle him at the same time.

Sherlock dips a napkin into Mary's glass of water and wipes off his fake moustache, having the actual nerve to ask, "Does, er, yours rub off, too?”

_Oh, yes you think you’re very funny, Sherlock Holmes._

Suddenly, the thought occurs to Sherlock that he owes him an apology, which does it for John. Slamming his fist on the table, Sherlock finally stops talking.

John has trouble breathing while he lets out his anger slowly. His therapist has told him to breathe calmly first. Not a very good advice for situations like this, but then your dead flatmate about whom you had all kinds of disturbing, heart-wrenching and wet dreams doesn't come back from the dead every day so that you can practise how you'll breathe in this situation.

Sherlock, of course, turns everything into a joke, and John has had enough jokes for the night, which is why he grabs Sherlock's collar and pushes him back through the aisle of the restaurant until Sherlock stumbles and lands on the floor with John on top of him.

John tries not to think about the fact that he is touching Sherlock in places he had only come close to touching in his dreams. He was never allowed to do this, and now he is, and it is all so _horribly wrong_.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

The night ends with Sherlock's attempts to explain how he survived the fall, and as much as he wants to know _how_ , the pain and the heartbreak as he realised that he was not important enough to be told that he was planning to die and fake his death to defeat Moriarty sit deep inside his chest and gnaw at his heart.

Sherlock's comments on his moustache and Mary not knowing how to tell John that is, in fact, hideous, do not improve the situation at all. He has to let out his rage somehow, and Sherlock deserves the blows.

He watches Mary stay behind with Sherlock while he walks down the road to call a cab home. He’s lucky he has not lost the engagement ring in all the chaos. The moment wasn’t right today, though, and now, he needs time to think.

He glances at Sherlock through the windows of the cab, with his nose bloody and his posture hunched as if in severe pain. He watches Sherlock whose eyes are fixed on him as the taxi drives away. Mary tells him she likes him. He can't believe how that's possible after the show Sherlock has put on.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

John barely sleeps that night. He lies awake as the minutes tick by. He has been supposed to make his girlfriend happy in a round of sensuous lovemaking after their engagement, but instead Mary has merely squeezed his arm, knowing and understanding, and switched off the light on her bedside table. She has wound an arm around his waist and given him a quick goodnight kiss before she has fallen asleep just a couple of minutes later.

John is not so lucky. Sleep will not relieve him from all the thoughts flooding his head and clouding his brain, growing louder and louder until it becomes almost unbearable. This is what Sherlock must feel like when the boredom overtakes him.

Sherlock.

The Sherlock who had kept haunting him and taunting him day in, day out remains excruciatingly quiet. Not a single word comes from his lips. He has vanished completely. Like the dream version of him once John would reach out to touch him, to grasp and hold as to not let him disappear. He always achieved the exact opposite.

How he longs to hear advice from him. Only through him did he come to terms with the truth of who he really is. He learnt to admit to himself that he was, truly, attracted to him, has been since the start. That is not all, however. It is not only physical attraction to the appealing features of his former flatmate. It is so much more than that, and so much more complicated. 

Not only once did he wish that it were Sherlock's hair he has been caressing absentmindedly while they sat in front of the telly, watching a dull romantic comedy with a predictable ending. Not only once did he crave Sherlock's presence, just to hear his voice, his choice of words, his almost unintelligible speeches when he deduces something at a crime scene that seems obvious enough to himself and impossible to read for anyone else standing around. Not only once did he simply want him around, to play the violin for him after he has had a nightmare. Although his dreams of Sherlock have taken on a more intimate atmosphere rather than reminded him of the earth-shattering scene that he had to witness in front of Barts hospital, those did occur, too, once in a while, and Mary's comfort has never been enough.

He misses the quiet nights at Baker Street, and being aware that it is no longer empty now makes him want to leave this bed immediately, get up and take a cab over there to have the long overdue talk with Sherlock. To shout at him for being such an idiot for leaving him behind. To tell him that he is more relieved than furious that he is back. To tell him that he is the only one he wants in his life as a fixed point in a changing age.

John had realised his romantic attraction gradually. It had started with little things like his warmth towards Mrs Hudson or his being at a complete loss when it came to apologising properly because he did it so rarely. When John had stumbled, truly stumbled, into Sherlock’s life, it was a mess. _He_ was a mess. At the brink of death in a mundane bedsit with nothing more to rely on than an army pension that was nowhere near enough to keep him alive for longer than a couple of months. Sherlock had somehow managed to turn his entire life around; cured his limp within less than 24 hours of having met him, given him the sort of danger he craved for his adrenaline kicks that John ~~was~~ is addicted to, been a terribly annoying but also an endearingly charming friend who cared more about him than he let on. Yes, he had weird habits, like talking to a skull on their mantelpiece and keeping body parts in the fridge – the head had been the biggest shock in John's life when he opened the fridge door – next to the food John actually intended to eat, but John got to see the parts of him that nobody else got to see, that nobody else had ever looked for, merely characterising him as the weirdo who solved crimes for fun and conducted odd experiments. But Sherlock had a heart, too, a very fragile one, as John realised very soon into their friendship. The Adler case still weighs heavily on his heart and procures jealousy inside him by just thinking about the way she played with his head and made him interested in her, be it only for her intellect. He had hated how heartbroken Sherlock became once she "died". Maybe he should already have known back then, but nobody had forced himself to come to terms with his own feelings at that time. It had taken Sherlock's own death for him to finally acknowledge how much he cared about him and to accept that this was the case.

He wanted to say something, intended to so many times, but he could simply never be sure what the consequences of his revelation would be, and getting rejected by Sherlock was something he was not ready to deal with. Not when he was still unsure of what nature his feelings were. Deep and profound or ephemeral and evanescent. When he was finally sure, it was too late already.

His dreams and Sherlock’s insistent voice in the back of his head helped a lot to figure out and discover their true nature. Even if it didn’t matter anymore because the person they were directed at was no longer among the living.

And now he is back and managed to turn John’s world upside down once again. Because Sherlock has been right. No matter how much he wants to have this normal life with someone steady by his side, someone providing safety, his heart is not in it.

John closes his eyes. That was the Sherlock in his mind. Not the real one. Who knows what the real Sherlock wants. He said he considered himself married to his work that first night at Angelo’s. Has that changed?

A part of him will always want Sherlock, and as long as he doesn’t know if his feelings are requited, he will not find peace in the relationship he is in. As unfair as that is towards Mary, it is even more unjust to stay in this and to pretend to love her as if she’s the love of his life when he can barely keep it up when he is intimate with her, the snide remarks of his not-so-dead flatmate always present at some stage. It simply isn’t fair.

Sherlock never talked about his feelings. He expressed his emotions during mood swings, which does not really count, and the sensitive way he coerced the sweetest and saddest tunes out of his violin, which comes a bit closer to letting his feelings out, but he never talked about the feelings that genuinely mattered to him, that bothered him even. He cannot be sure.

Only time can tell …

He looks down at Mary and then turns his head to look at the alarm clock on his own bedside table. It's already well past two. He needs to sleep. He has to be at work at eight. Jesus.

With a groan, he stretches and somehow manages to fall asleep eventually.

 

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

Mary teases him when he shaves off the moustache, calls Sherlock “his nibs” and implies he only does it for Sherlock. He denies it, but actually, it’s the truth. It’s not working for him. It’s one of the changes he desperately wanted to happen that did not truly change anything for the better, though.

It’s time to get a hold of his life once more. On the life he really wants to live.

He goes to work and – regrets it. He mistakes one of his patients for Sherlock in yet another disguise. Mary comes in to check on them. God, how much deeper can he possibly fall …

He doesn't want to talk about the incident. Instead, he goes to Baker Street after work, the embarrassment still weighing on his shoulders.

He hesitates in front of the door, watching the golden numbers. Bright, shining, reflecting the dim light of the grey late afternoon as if a burning force had come to life from within them now that the rightful inhabitant is back where he should be.

He wants to go in, but then someone jostles him away, barging against his bad shoulder and making him turn around. “Excuse you,” he says, but the man with the cap only turns to look at him condescendingly before he continues to walk away.

Then everything happens too quickly. Something sharp is pressed against his neck, a needle, but before he can defend himself, he already collapses on the ground. A neuromuscular blocking agent is paralysing his muscles.

It’s not long before everything fades to black and a numbing silence takes over his system.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

When he wakes, his entire body hurts. The smell of old, rotten wood burns in his nostrils. Musty. Where the hell has he been taken?

He wants to move and finds that he can't. Everything is numb and heavy. It feels as if he is in one of his nightmares, feeling the need to move, to just step forward and walk, do something, but he is chained on the spot, paralysed, incapable of running.

He discerns voices in the distance but cannot make out what they are saying. Some are louder, some quieter. He panics. What is going to happen to him?

He wants to call out, scream for help, but he remains silent. Not a sound leaves his mouth. He shakes his head as if to shake off the drug he's been given. It doesn't help.

His eyes finally focus. There are little branches of trees and boughs. Oh God.

He’s in a fire. He has been put into a fire.

He wants to move, needs to move, struggling with every muscle he wants to bring back to life. He tries to cry out. Why aren't people standing closer to the fire so that they could hear him?

A few audible sounds break free from his throat. Not loud enough, not loud enough. He can smell the bitter smoke from a torch. They wouldn’t. They _couldn’t_.

Someone lights the bonfire, and the crowd begins to cheer. _Oh God._

Heat surrounds him very quickly, and the smoke burns in his lungs. He screams, and finally, it's loud enough for people to hear. Too late. Too late. “HELP!”

People scream around the fire, but nobody approaches to help. What kind of cowards are they?

“Move! Move!” he hears someone shout. “MOVE!”

Sherlock. It sounds like Sherlock. _Thank God. Thank fucking God._

He screams once more. "HELP!"

“JOHN!” He sounds desperate and terrified. Never has he witnessed his voice sound like that.

Sherlock reaches into the fire and grabs large pieces of the wood and the pallets that have been stacked on top of one another, throwing them aside. “John!”

John can see him. He’s here. He’s saving him. Once again. _God, Sherlock._

Sherlock grabs him by the arms and pulls him out of the fire with all his might. He turns him onto his back carefully and touches his face with his glove-covered hand to get his attention, almost cradling his face. John can barely open his eyes. Mary must be here, too. He can hear her broken sobs as she says his name, but, somehow, she doesn’t matter. He only cares about one person right now. His lifesaver. 

“Hey, John,” Sherlock whispers softly. Their faces are so close. It’s all so horribly wrong.

His eyes fall closed, and consciousness slips out of him, leaving him behind in the darkness but in safety.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

He doesn't remember much of the rest of the night. Somewhere in the distance, police sirens have grown louder, and someone had taken care of his injuries. No stitches needed, thankfully, but this was a gruesome experience. He feels immensely exhausted, wanting nothing more than to rest, sleep, escape into another world where everything is fine.

Mary takes him home and puts him to bed, and he does precisely that. Retreat into another world, a safer world, a better world where Sherlock strokes over his hair with a concerned look on his face.

_“That was quite close, John.”_

_“Oh, you’re back, are you?”_

_He’s in his bed at Baker Street. Someone he is always there in his dreams._

_“You saved me.”_

_“No, the other me did. But I was with you, too, of course. You just didn’t hear me. Too drugged out.”_

_John falls quiet. Two different Sherlock’s in his life. He cannot even deal with one of them._

_“You’ve made a decision yet?”_

_John shakes his head. Of course, he knows. He's in the back of his head. He knows all his thoughts, all his worries, all his doubts and hopes and needs._

_“Will you take me back? Will it be different this time?”_

_“I am not the one you should be asking.”_

_“You’re Sherlock Holmes. You are exactly who I need to be asking.”_

_"No. I'm not the right one. I'm the Sherlock Holmes you want, your idealised version, but I shouldn't be. The one who's there when you need him, who touches you and drives you up the wall with his horrible comments on every decision you make and every action to take. The real me is currently sitting at home, waiting for you.”_

_"Are you really waiting for me?" John asks. It feels like that is what John has been doing; waiting for Sherlock's return without being truly aware of it._

_“Why don’t you go and find out yourself?”_

_With that, he runs his hand through John’s hair one last time – it’s dirty and reeks of ash and smoke – and disappears without John having reached out to touch him this time._

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

He showers the next morning, then has breakfast alone. Mary is at work, and he welcomes the quiet. It’s the silence before the storm, though it feels like the storm has already started.

He looks at his wounds in the mirror. A few scratches on his temple and his jawline at the side of his neck. It’ll heal. Maybe his heart will, too, one day.

The trip to Baker Street is endless, which is the best way to soothe his nervousness. He doesn’t even know why he bothers to go and talk to Sherlock. Sherlock never talks about important things, but then, maybe this time will be different. 

It’s all or nothing now.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

He is surprised to see an elderly couple on ~~their~~ Sherlock's sofa. Sherlock stands on the couch, looking at the wall, which is cluttered in photographs and notes. The two don't seem to mind. Sherlock is as surprised as he must be, and ushers them out immediately, looking almost … embarrassed? The woman reminds him that they are here till Saturday. Maybe it's case. Perhaps she needs it solved by then.  

If he didn’t know any better, he would say that they are his parents, but they do not exactly fit John’s imagination. These people are too … normal. Ordinary. So unlike Sherlock. And yet the man looks like an older version of him. They can’t be …

John watches the scene with a confused but amused expression. He walks over to the wall and has a look at it. The last time it was that full of papers and photographs and maps, they were investigating the bombings organised by Moriarty. He wants to turn and listen to the conversation Sherlock is having with the elderly couple, but it feels like an invasion of privacy. Instead, he takes in the familiarity of ~~their~~ Sherlock's flat. He has come back and resumed his life here as if nothing had happened at all.

If only. Maybe everything would be different now.

"Ring up more often, will you?" the man tells him.

Sherlock replies hurriedly. “Hm-hm.”

“She _worries_.” 

They have to be his parents.

“Promise?” the woman asks in a hushed tone. Sherlock hesitates. John doesn’t dare look into their direction.

"Promise," Sherlock answers in a hushed and low tone before he shuts the door forcefully and apologises about the incident. 

“No, it’s fine,” John tells him nonchalantly. “Clients?” He has to ask, and he can’t state the obvious. Well. It’s not truly obvious, is it? Just a guess. A shot in the dark, which Sherlock often takes, too.

Sherlock takes a breath and pretends not to be embarrassed. “Just my parents.”

John acts as if he is surprised and looks after Sherlock’s parents through the window. Sherlock explains hurriedly why they are here, that Mycroft promised to take them to see Les Mis. He pictures Sherlock and Mycroft in this utterly ordinary family and has to chuckle. Sherlock being admonished by his father because he doesn’t phone them up often enough. That picture makes his insides tickle. He imagines Sherlock picking up the phone on a quiet evening, in his pyjama bottoms and a washed-out t-shirt, sitting on the sofa lazily as he rings up his parents. He wonders what he calls them. Mum and Dad? Mummy and Daddy? Mummy is what Mycroft had called her that first night, after their first case when John had saved Sherlock's life.

“That is not what I …”

"What?" Sherlock's hands rest at his sides as if he doesn't know what to do with them.

“I-I mean they’re just ... so ... ordinary.”

Sherlock smiles. John’s heart goes up in flames. It doesn’t hurt. It’s glorious. “It’s a cross I have to bear.”

John chuckles, but then the conversation turns serious. He doesn't want to talk about the funeral, but Sherlock forced him to watch him die and left him behind thinking he was actually dead. Making him aware how much that hurt is not a great payback, but nobody can't deny him the occasional reminder of how that was more than _a bit not good_.

Sherlock apologises again. It's heartfelt this time. It warms John's insides. He wants to reach out and pull him into his arms and doesn't want to think about the fact that this might not be welcomed.

“See you’ve shaved it off, then?” Sherlock pulls him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah. It wasn’t working for me.”

“Hmm. I’m glad.”

“What, you didn’t like it?”

“No. I prefer my doctors clean-shaven,” Sherlock smiles.

John's chest tingles strangely. "That's not a sentence you hear every day."

He wants him to elaborate on this, but Sherlock doesn’t do him the favour, so John sits down in his old armchair. It’s still welcoming and comfortable. This is where he belongs.

“How are you feeling?” Sherlock wants to know, but John doesn’t know how he feels at all. He decides to be honest.

“Ask me what I had for breakfast. Easier question.”

"You didn't have to be taken to the hospital. Thankfully."

This Sherlock is different. Less snide, less smug. He genuinely has changed.

John shakes his head. “No. You called the ambulance?”

“Mary wasn’t capable of more than standing by your side, ensuring you were still breathing.”

John acknowledges that with a nod. He doesn't want to think about her. Not now. Not when he finally got the miracle for which he has been praying for two years.

He watches Sherlock as he watches him. His gaze is softer somehow. Less piercing. He lets out a breathy laugh and leans forward in his armchair, onto his elbows. “I can’t believe you’re alive,” he mumbles.

Sherlock laughs quickly. It's not an actual laugh. "Me neither."

John looks up at him. He shifts from one foot onto the other. Unsure. A state Sherlock is barely in. “What?”

Sherlock dismisses it, waives it off. “Nothing. This is a story for another time.”

John wants to hear them all right now, but Sherlock doesn’t seem very comfortable talking about this topic, so John lets it go. For now. “You’ll stay, though, won’t you? Moriarty’s dead. His operatives, too?”

“Most of them, yes.”

“Most of them?”

Sherlock gestures towards his wall. “One of them is planning a terrorist attack on London.”

He explains his progression on the case so far, shows him the video footage of Lord Moran disappearing down in the tube. Suddenly, he is slipping back into his old life with Sherlock, solving cases as if he hadn't died at all and as if everything can just continue despite the long interruption.

They take a cab to Westminster station before they head down the tube. It's the first time his leg doesn't hurt when he walks quickly. Sherlock leads him to a locked maintenance entrance, opens the gate with a crowbar.

“That’s illegal,” John comments, slightly annoyed because Sherlock doesn’t let him call the police.

“A bit.”

 _God, I love you_ , he thinks _._ This is the Sherlock that has kept talking to him all this time. At least that part hasn’t changed.

They walk further and further into the dark, taking a detour through various tunnels that leads them to the underground station that has been fully built but never used. When they reach the platform of Sumatra road station, Sherlock stops in his tracks. Confused. The carriage isn't here. "I don't understand."

“Well, that’s a first,” John replies.

“There’s nowhere else it could be," Sherlock tells him and then brings his hand to his face, retreating into his mind palace remarkably quickly. He must have practised that. He used to take some time before he was fully immersed. Suddenly, his eyes snap open, and he exclaims, "Oh!" before he jumps down onto the tracks.

John’s reluctance to follow him vanishes before his doubts can make a home inside his chest.

And there it is. The missing train carriage. They find demolition charges inside the tunnel. They’re everywhere. Meant to blow up Parliament. The whole carriage is the bomb. Sherlock reveals that within less than two minutes. John hasn’t even noticed the wires leading up to the giant bomb hidden under a loose panel on the floor.

“We need bomb disposal.”

“There may not be time for that now.”

And they didn’t call the police. Wonderful.

Nervousness floods his entire body. It's more than the adrenaline kicks he keeps searching. This is more than unsettling. They start bickering. Why doesn't Sherlock know how to defuse a bloody bomb? Sherlock points out that he was a soldier, which is never let unmentioned. It's not helping now.

The timer begins to count backwards. _Oh God._

Sherlock tells him to leave, but that’s the last thing he will do now. It’s no use anyway.

They’re going to die here.

“Sherlock, do something, I swear to God.”

“What do you want me to do?”

"Something. Anything. Use your mind palace. Just––" He needs to control his breathing, or he will hyperventilate.

Sherlock disappears in his mind palace once more. If matters weren't so pressing and the situation so dangerous, he would have called Sherlock's face adorable while he is trying to think so desperately, but right now, all he can think about is that he doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to lose the second chance that he has been given. Not through this. Through their recklessness.

Sherlock cries out as if in pain, and John knows that this is it. There goes his attempt to do things the right way for once in his life. He won't get this chance now. He will not get to live the rest of his life, neither with Sherlock nor with Mary. He needs to hold onto one of the poles, or he will collapse on the spot.

Meanwhile, Sherlock frantically tries to turn off the bomb, muttering under his breath.

At least he will die with Sherlock. If it has to happen at all, this is how it should be. Nobody gets left behind. Nobody has to suffer.

When John turns, Sherlock is kneeling over the bomb, on the floor, and looking up at him. He’s close to tears. “I’m sorry,” he pants softly.

John doesn’t believe his ears. “What?”

“I can’t … I can’t do it, John. I don’t know how,” he breathes. His eyes are full of tears now. The last time he has heard him sound like that he was standing on a rooftop, about to go to his death. He sits up. “Forgive me.”

“Sherlock …”

“Please, John, forgive me … for all the hurt that I caused you.”

The timer is relentless. _1:29_. He would smile at the irony if he weren’t close to his own death.

Sherlock is still kneeling in front of him, hands folded together as if in a prayer. John walks over to him, sinking down to his knees as well and taking both his hands in his own. “You idiot,” he says through gritted teeth. Tears gather in his eyes, too, making it hard to say what needs to be said.

He has got one minute and twenty-nine seconds to tell Sherlock he loves him before they’re going to die.

“You are the best and the wisest man, that I have ever known.”

Sherlock looks up at him, confused and at a loss. His hands are cold in John’s own.

"Of course, I forgive you. I'll always forgive you, no matter what you do. You have saved my life more than once, and I can't believe this is how it ends."

“John,” Sherlock whispers, sobs almost, his throat constricted with heavy tears.

“All this time,” John croaks out, “I wished that you were still out there, somewhere. Not beneath that terrible headstone that Mycroft chose for you. That is was all a mistake or a nightmare I could wake up from.” He squeezes Sherlock’s hands tightly, and Sherlock squeezes back. He’s still alive. He’s still got time.

“I always wished you’d come back, even though I knew you wouldn’t. That I was being stupid. I was always the idiot. Still am.”

Sherlock laughs at that, still managing to control his breathing somehow. “True, that. Well, not quite.”

“We’ve got less than a minute to live. You could attempt to be considerate,” John tells him. He doesn’t have Sherlock’s control.

"I was a wreck without you," John says. "Hell, I am a wreck without you." It doesn't matter how emotional he sounds. They are going to die. Nobody except Sherlock will ever know. He won't know for more than a minute before this is over. That is the terrible truth.

“And now I am back, and you’re close to death,” Sherlock counters.

“I’ve been close to that all my life.”

Sherlock doesn’t seem to know how to answer. Another first. Another last. Their time must be almost up.

“I wanted you not to be dead. Because I needed to tell you how much you bloody meant to me, but it was too late, you were dead, and it was too late, and I never got the chance to––“ His tears are falling now. “––and now that I do, we're dying."

"John …" Sherlock's voice sounds oddly calm. Of course he would be. He sees this rationally. They'll be dead before they can feel the pain. That must be it.

Sherlock pulls him closer until his head rests against his chest. His shirt is slightly damp with sweat, but that doesn't matter. John lets out the sobs he has been holding for the last fifty-nine seconds. _Thirty seconds_ are enough. They are enough.

_This is all we get._

“I cannot believe this is happening,” he whispers, digging his fingers into Sherlock’s lapels.

_Twenty-five seconds._

He looks up into Sherlock’s face. He is so close. So close.

“You were always with me,” John admits out loud. “In my dreams, in my nightmares. When my mind wandered off on its own. Always.”

“What did I say?”

_Too much. And not enough. Never enough._

“That this was all we got.”

Sherlock smiles sadly then. “As much as I hate to admit it, but … I was wrong.”

“What?”

_Fifteen seconds._

“We still get this.”

With that, he cups John's face with his hands and seals their lips together. They're soft and full, and nothing like the dream version John has kept chasing. The kiss is salty and slow. John can barely move his lips. The sobs are paralysing him, but he does his best to return it the way he would if he weren't dying. He wraps his arms around Sherlock's thin frame, feeling for the first and last time. He's never felt so alive.

His closed eyes cannot hold back the tears, but that doesn’t matter. The last five seconds of their lives matter.

Only that.

_Four._

_Three._

“I love you,” he whispers against Sherlock’s mouth.

_Two._

Sherlock smiles sadly.

_One._

John closes his eyes, bracing himself.

And then …

… silence.

He opens his eyes.

Sherlock is still smiling. Happily now. “Sherlock …,” John gasps. “What have you––“

“There’s an off-switch on the side of the bomb.”

John turns around. The timer has stopped at 1:29. He leans down. There it is. The off-switch. 

“You …”

“John …”

“Why would you make me go through that?” John lets out a wave of air.

He turns his attention back to Sherlock, who was still smiling. Not smugly. Innocently. Sheepishly. “Because you had things to say.”

_God, yes, he did._

“What about you?” he wants to know. Has to know.

“I just showed you, didn’t I?”

His face is dangerously close again. Deliciously close.

“You did. A bit of reassurance doesn’t hurt, though.”

Sherlock's smile is irresistible. So is that goddamn mouth. Sherlock presses his lips against John's as if he truly were dying in the next few seconds, pouring all that he feels into the kiss. His hands caress John's tear-stained cheeks and then bury themselves in his hair, stroking it in a calming manner. All the while, John can't do much but hold onto him; his coat, his shirt.

 _You can touch him now. He won’t go anywhere_ , John has to remind himself repeatedly of that. All this time, he had not been allowed, had not been granted that right. Now, he can. Now he will.

His fingers run over those sharp cheekbones. Sherlock is still here. He touches the soft strands of hair, plays with them, wraps them around his fingers. Sherlock is still here. He rests his hands on the back of Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock is still here, still kissing him slowly, languidly because now they can, now they have the chance and the time to do so.

John pulls back. “We’re not dying.”

Sherlock smiles. His lips are swollen. It is a sight John wants to see for the rest of his life. “No.”

“We’re all right.”

“Mostly, yes.” 

“The MPs are safe. … We’re safe.” 

“Mostly, yes, John.” 

'Mostly' is good. He can work with ‘mostly.'

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

He goes back to the house in the suburbs one last time, to face her, to tell her, to break things off and apologise. He can deal with the guilt on another day. When he arrives, he finds her packing. “It’s all right, John. No need to say anything.”

“Mary.”

She grabs her bags. “We’ll meet again, trust me on that,” she tells him, smiling in a way he cannot decipher, and then she’s gone, leaving him behind in the bedroom he has shared with her for the past six months.

He does the only thing that seems right in that moment and starts packing, too.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

He has expected things to become awkward once he'd be back in their flat, but somehow it isn't. Sherlock has already been waiting for him. Like the version of him in the back of John's head had predicted.

“I wanted to break things off with her.”

“Good." 

“She already knew. She’d already packed.” 

“Good. Saves you the trouble, and the time.”

God, yes. Time is precious. If he hadn’t known before, he would have learnt it today.

“She’s a liar.” 

“What?”

“Ex-assassin. Dirty jobs for the CIA, freelance killer, A.G.R.A., and––“

"And?" John presses on.

“One of the snipers at the pool.”

Jesus Christ.

“You’re just making that up,” he tells Sherlock. He had to be. She can’t have been––

“Wish I were. We only found out recently that she was involved with Moriarty, John. Mycroft would have intervened otherwise. Although he does take his time with that lately,” he says as if deep in thought.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Serbian prison. He sneaked in to get me out. Couldn’t help but enjoy the show as they kept venting their spleen on me, though.” He shrugs, pretends it is nothing. John’s heart skips more than just one beat.

“Sherlock,” he breathes. “What did they do to you?”

“Nothing worth wasting our time over by talking about it,” Sherlock tells him in earnest and pulls him down onto the sofa, so they’re lying side-by-side.

“What happened to John I’m-Not-Gay Watson?” Sherlock asks instead. They’re lying side by side on the sofa now. It’s too narrow, but neither of them wants to move.

“He died with you on that roof.” 

Sherlock gives him a sad smile. John cannot bear to look at that sight of him, so he changes the subject. “What will we do about Mary?”

“Mycroft’s minions watch her closely. Don’t you worry about a thing. We'll step in should she become a threat."

John nods, resting his head on Sherlock's shoulder. This is still unbelievable. He cannot stop smiling at the strange turn of events his life has taken. He has never expected Sherlock would ever dare to take the first step, and yet he has, and it is perfect. Finally, they are walking on the right path.

“What?” Sherlock asks him.

John shakes his head. “Nothing, just–– I’m happy.”

“You deserve to be, John.”

He laughs. Yes, he does, actually. He does. “I never expected you’d want this.”

“Took me too long to figure out that I do,” Sherlock says. “You’re not the only idiot in that respect.”

John chuckles at that, and cups his cheek, obsessed with the idea of touching him, fascinated by the fact that he doesn’t vanish the moment his fingers meet his skin.

“You kissed me although you saw that I was not free, which says a lot about your moral standards, I suppose. But then, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“And why is that?” Sherlock cocks an amused eyebrow.

“The things you got up to in my dreams,” John shakes his head. “Unspeakable.”

“I’d like to know about all of them.”

“If you tell me about your time away?”

Sherlock hesitates for a moment, but then says, “Deal.”

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

Sherlock invites him into his bedroom that night, but they don’t do anything physical. John is neither surprised nor disappointed, only confused at the change in Sherlock’s posture and behaviour when it comes to changing into his nightwear. Does undressing really unsettle him? Letting John see him naked? His skin uncovered?

He excuses himself to the bathroom, and John gives him the privacy. He appreciates it partly, even if it baffles him a little. Sherlock has never been coy about revealing large parts of his nude body in front of people; Buckingham Palace being the best example. This is different, though. This is more intimate. _Maybe this is the reason_ , John thinks and wants to let it go.

Sherlock takes long, very long, longer than he remembers was his routine. John still needs to brush his teeth. So after almost fifteen minutes of no word from Sherlock and John waiting on the edge of Sherlock’s bed, he knocks on the bathroom door. “You okay in there?”

“Yes.”

“You only need to go to bed, not to the Oscar’s ceremony,” John attempts to make a joke.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

But the minute turns into two, which turns into five, and then Sherlock curses under his breath. “Sherlock.”

“Don’t come in, John.” 

“Tell me what’s wrong, then.”

“Nothing, I just––“

“If it were nothing, you’d let me come in. Let me see if I can help.” With that he opens the bathroom door.

“John, no––“ 

 _Oh God._  

Sherlock sits on the edge of the tub, hunched over the medical paraphernalia in his hands. Scissors, gauze, bandages.

And then he sees it. Red, bloody marks are covering the entirety of Sherlock's back and shoulder blades. Deep cuts, at least five of them had been stitched up. They sit there like an accusation, in screaming crimson and purple on Sherlock's once so flawless skin. So white and so pale when he last saw him. So bruised and scratched and injured now.

All the air inside him leaves John’s lungs with one exhale. He approaches him slowly. “Sherlock, good Lord, what have they done to you …”

Sherlock turns his back away from him, quickly gathering the medical equipment one by one. “It’s nothing John, please don’t––“ he answers hurriedly, but John doesn’t let him finish.

“Nothing? Your back is covered in wounds! Deep ones! Bad ones, God and I _pushed_ you onto that restaurant floor. Did I tear the stitches?”

“John––“

“Tell me. Did I?”

Sherlock bites his bottom lip. “Only two.”

“Jesus …”

“It’s all right, John. Honestly. They barely hurt anymore. They––“

He clearly needs to take care of the wounds. New bandages. New patches. Sherlock evidently intended to do it himself, but he couldn’t reach all of them.

John is all doctor-mode now. “Ointment. Did they give you antibiotic ointment?” 

“In the right cabinet, middle shelf.” Sherlock sighs and gets up from the tub. John isn’t having it.

“Sit.”

“It’s really not––“

“Sit.”

He does and turns his back to John. John washes his hands before he puts on disposable gloves, kneels down and sets to work. He cuts the gauze accordingly to the size of the wounds, lets them hover a few inches above them to see if they fit before he applies the ointment to every single one of them. Silence takes over for a long while, but when he touches the deep ones that needed re-stitching, Sherlock winces and lets out a strangled noise of pain.

John wants to gather him in his arms and apologise for the rest of his life for everything that Sherlock thought needed to be done to defeat the threat that Moriarty posed. "I am so sorry," he whispers and moves his hands more carefully, cautiously. Only one more wound to touch, one more gauze to cover it, one more plaster to apply.

“It was worth it. Every single one has been worth it,” Sherlock tells him earnestly. 

“How can you say that?” John breathes. Sherlock turns around to look at him when John has finished.

“Because you’re alive, and I’m alive, too. That’s all that matters.”

John gets up from the cold, hard tile floor. Sherlock remains where he is. John's knees protest at the sudden stretch, but he doesn't care. He takes off the gloves and bins them. Then, he reaches for Sherlock's face, leans down and kisses him tenderly as if his fragile frame might break under his touch. He won't wrap him up in cotton wool because he knows Sherlock would hate him if he did, but he needs to show him that things will be different now. No more torture and no more pain. Just genuine affection and gentle words.

John cleans his teeth, and they go to bed. Sherlock lies down carefully as to not yank off the plaster due to sudden movement. John walks around the bed and joins him from the other side. Their bodies align as if made for one another. Sherlock rests his head on John’s shoulder this time, resting a hand on John’s chest while John’s hand disappears in Sherlock’s curls and he wraps an arm around his waist.

Sherlock tells him about the snipers that Moriarty had placed to kill them, the threat of killing John, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade if he didn’t jump, if his snipers didn’t see him jump. He talks about Moriarty shooting himself, how it changed their plan entirely, tells him about Mycroft’s involvement, their attempt to get control over the snipers. He says he hated to have been forced to make John watch everything, that he wasn’t meant to come back so quickly, but then he had wanted to see him one last time, to hear his voice, to apologise and say goodbye because although his death was staged, there was no guarantee of his return.

John listens with his eyes wide. 

“Why did you think you have to do all of this alone?”

“I couldn’t put your life at risk any more than it already was,” Sherlock replies, his voice low. “Besides, I was never alone.”

"What?" Who else knew? Who else did Sherlock trust more to involve them than all his other helpers who had somehow mattered more back then than John himself?

“You were with me, too. In the back of my mind.”

John pulls back a little to look at him. Sherlock smiles and nods. “Helped me more than once to escape or patch myself up in a dark, wet cellar. You kept me going. All this time.” His smile turns a little sad then. “Turns out I’m no good without you.”

“Neither am I.” John strokes his hair and edges closer until their legs are entangled and there is no space left between them.

“Good thing we don’t have to be anymore, then.” 

“No. Not anymore,” John agrees and settles into a more comfortable position, never taking his hands off Sherlock, though. He presses a gentle kiss to his forehead that bears so many more lines now from years of hard work and arduous tasks, but they make Sherlock no less gorgeous. 

This is so much better than all his dreams combined, and there is so much more to explore, so much more to say to one another. Though not tonight. Not in a delicate moment like this. He kisses him once more, just a gentle press of lips, two or three slow tugs to show Sherlock how much it means to him that he has done all of this for John. To return to him one day. To guarantee his safety so they could have this. Each other. Together.

Sherlock smiles. It makes John’s heart soar and sing with happiness. They will be all right. Now that they have each other back, they will be all right. He can feel it.

 

~~––––––––––––––––––––~~

 

It takes a while, a lot of patience and convincing, but eventually, Sherlock opens up about his time away. All the places he visited. The criminal agents he chased from country to country. The accommodations he spent cold and lonely nights in, usually patching himself up with alcohol because proper disinfectant was a precious rarity. Sometimes he was relieved to find nothing more than an abandoned shed somewhere.

John wants to gather him in his arms whenever he finishes another story. Sherlock always brushes it off as if it were nothing. John wants to tell him how wrong that is, and he does, very often, how it is the opposite of nothing.

Sherlock reaches for him and kisses him then and reminds him of the other part of their deal. So John tells him.

About how he kept patronising him sometimes, his dastardly comments, but also about his advice that he gave him when he made stupid decisions, which was most often followed by a snide joke on Sherlock’s part, but it helped him, not to move on, but to move forward eventually, and that was better than nothing.

"You didn't like Mary," John tells him when they sit at the kitchen table over dinner.

“No, I truly didn’t,” Sherlock answers, as if in thought, but John shakes his head.

“No, I mean, the version of you in my mind didn’t. It started with her hair colour because you couldn’t define it.”

Sherlock snorts at that. "It _was_ hard to define. Even you noticed that in your subconscious apparently.”

John bumps his knee against Sherlock's under the table in mock annoyance, but can't hide his grin. "Shut up."

“Make me if you so desperately wish to,” Sherlock dares him.

“Oh, I wanted to,” John answers, leaning close to Sherlock’s face. “Most of the time, actually.”

Sherlock cocks an amused eyebrow. “I can’t have been that bad.”

“Hmm, you were most of the time.”

Sherlock pulls back, increasing the distance between them a bit. “When?” he wants to know.

“All the bloody time. In front of the cereal aisle at Tesco, during my dates with Mary – be it at a restaurant or during a quiet evening at home – when we were in be–“ he clears his throat. Great. So much for being honest. “Never mind, just … all the time. ”

“I was on your mind when you were intimate with her?” Sherlock asks, incredulous. “That says a lot about your will to move on.”

“That’s more or less what I heard before,” John answers, rubbing his hands over his face.

“The me in your head is very close to reality, then,” Sherlock teases him.

“It wasn’t you, just some version of you that I dreamed up to feel better.”

“True. The real me has no data on your performance in the bedroom. Therefore I cannot judge," Sherlock smirks at him. "Maybe you'd like to alter this precarious situation of my incapability of forming an opinion due to a lack of facts and first-hand experience."

John is laughing now. “Don’t you dare tempt me. I’m not going to tear your stitches again.”

“Come on, John, it’s been a week.”

“Exactly. You’re still healing. I won’t––“ 

Sherlock groans in annoyance and trails his hand over John's chest until it rests dangerously close to his crotch. "Don't be such a bore."

It reminds John of all the dreams that featured this sort of setting. "Access denied. Now eat your dinner." With that, he gets up from his chair and flees from Sherlock's adventurous hands.

“Not hungry.”

"Not buying that."

“Well,” Sherlock says and gets up, too, crowding him against the kitchen counter. His lips are close to his ear and tickle him when he starts whispering, sending a shiver down his spine at the same time. “I _am_ hungry, but for something else now.”

“You are the most unbelievable man that I have ever met.” His eyes flicker down to Sherlock’s lips once he’s looking down at him again.

“Don’t say that like an insult,” Sherlock grins and kisses him; sweetly and leisurely but no less sultry. He relishes the feeling.

“You are a bad man,” John utters between the delicate tugs of Sherlock’s lips against his own.

"Only sometimes," Sherlock murmurs before he invades John’s personal space once more and resumes to involve John’s mouth in a more pleasant activity than talking. 

Sherlock brings his leg between John’s and grinds it against his middle, making him gasp into the kiss – an opportunity that Sherlock uses to his advantage instantly. His tongue darts between John’s lips to find his counterpart in his mouth.

John is in heaven.

He has dreamt of doing this with a ghost version of Sherlock for so long, and now he is back, and he gets to do this for real. It is a miracle. The one he has been asking for over and over again when he stood by Sherlock's grave and brought him flowers.

“Stop thinking,” Sherlock breathes against his lips.

"I'm not."

"You are. Now stop it."

Sherlock's hands explore his chest, opening each button of his shirt with one hand only. The other one rests on his cheek, caressing it in such a gentle way that John hasn't expected Sherlock to be capable of. He uncovers more and more inches of his skin until his vest makes an appearance. He steps forward, and the shirt falls to the ground. His scar on his shoulder is uncovered, no longer hidden from Sherlock's sharp, all-seeing eyes. It's the first time he truly sees it, despite the long time they have been living together.

Sherlock’s eyes meet his, silently asking for permission to touch and John nods. He barely feels it when someone touches him there, but in spite of that, it can hurt like hell on bad days. Sherlock runs his long fingers over it. John closes his eyes. He shivers under Sherlock’s touch, no matter over which part of his body it is he moves his fingers.

Sherlock presses his lips against the puckered circle of skin. It’s so tender and considerate that John’s entire chest constricts. He licks at the unfeeling flesh with his tongue and then brushes over it with his lips in silent worship.

He takes Sherlock’s hand to get his attention. Sherlock looks up and seems to understand him without needing to ask because the next thing he does is nod and then pull him towards the bedroom.

They undress each other slowly, without any haste. John is especially careful not to hurt Sherlock's back any further because he knows that he's still in pain when he moves about too quickly, despite everything he says. Hence, he takes his time, not only to avoid any rapid movements but also to take in the view in front of him; Sherlock's thin (too thin) body with a nonetheless defined and muscular body. His fingers trace the lines of his pecs, run up to his clavicle and this goddamn neck that made his mouth water on enough occasions in the past.

It’s still unreal, and he has to remind himself a lot of times of the fact that he is allowed to do this now, and so he does. He leans forward to kiss it because he can.

His fingers run over Sherlock’s nipples, pinching lightly and causing him to gasp into the silence in the room. They wander further down, through a patch of thin hair above his groin area. He looks up at him and Sherlock nods, encourages him to go on, so he unbuttons his bespoke trousers and pulls the zipper down.

This is real. This is not a dream.

The trousers fall to the floor, and Sherlock steps out of them, making no big show out of it and reaching for John's own flies. Before long, they stand in front of each other in nothing more than their boxers. Sherlock's are black and look very soft, probably designed by someone with a huge name, but John honestly couldn't care less right now because what lies beneath them and currently presses against the fabric is much more interesting. He reaches down to touch the outer side of his pants, and Sherlock moans, resting his hands on John's shoulders and his forehead against John's. His touches are light – teasing – because that's what he deserves for all the derisive comments about his performance.

He wants data. Well, here it is.

He cups him through the fabric and massages lightly.

“God, John. Just pull them down already,” he whimpers, very close to doing it himself.

“Impatient, are we?”

“Yes.”

John chuckles quietly and gives in, leading him towards the bed, waiting for him to lie down first. “All right?”

“Stop worrying, for God’s sake,” Sherlock tells him but has visibly still problems with this task.

“Are you sure we should––“

“Very. Now get in here and continue what you started,” Sherlock says eagerly.

“You mean what you started.”

“Irrelevant.”

“Of course.”

John lies down beside him and pulls him onto his lap. He shouldn’t be lying on his back with John’s weight pressing down on him. Very bad for the lacerations. This way is much more efficient.

He pulls him down into a kiss, buries his hands in those wonderfully soft curls and grinds his middle against Sherlock’s through the two layers of fabric still separating them from touching. They both groan simultaneously.

He is aching inside his pants. This feels like one of his dreams.

Sherlock plunges his tongue into his mouth and moves his hips, brushing their straining erections against one another once more before he pulls back. "These pants need to go. Immediately."

John agrees with him and sits up, reaching for the waistband of Sherlock's pants. He slowly pulls them down, freeing Sherlock's cock, and allows himself to look. It takes his breath away. It's long and slender, flush and pink, nestled in a dark patch of hair, and John wants to devour him.

No, not yet.

He helps him discard his pants and quickly gets rid of his own, giving Sherlock the chance to take in the view as well, as he kneels between his legs, leaning forward on his arms. John has never been shy about his length; his past lovers never complained about it.

Sherlock probably has similar thoughts about wanting to eat him alive because his pupils elevate and almost swallow his entire irises.

Before Sherlock can do what he very clearly intends to do, though, John beats him to it and grabs his face in both his hands, kissing him hard, catching Sherlock's bottom lip with his teeth, nibbling and biting gently, making Sherlock collapse on top of John's chest. Their middles are touching; their almost aligned cocks brush against each other. He welcomes the friction, moaning against Sherlock’s gasping mouth.

Sherlock reaches down, letting his hand trail over John’s chest, through the thin, golden hair on John’s chest, but John takes him by the wrist. “What––“

“Let me,” John whispers. It is his turn to touch Sherlock after all the times he touched him in his dreams. He wants to feel every inch of him, run his fingers over every patch of naked skin, but when he sees the devilish look in Sherlock’s eyes, he is reminded that Sherlock has never touched him at all. Not this version of him. He deserves to feel him, too, to roam his hands and lips all over his body.

“You want data, don’t you?”

“Oh yes,” Sherlock smirks, pushing himself up onto his arms and reclaiming his position between John’s spread legs. “And I’m getting it.”

With that, he lets his lips sink down onto John's cock. "Oh God!" John moans as his head sinks back against the pillows. Sherlock presses open-mouthed kisses to the tip. John grips the sheets tightly. It's pure bliss.

Sherlock’s fingers reach around the base, massaging it gently as he pushes the foreskin back with his lips and runs his tongue over his slit.

“Fuck!” John cries out, bucking his hips involuntarily. “Sherlock, oh my God.”

Sherlock moans around him, and that sensation alone almost makes John come. “Ahh––“

Sherlock takes him in deeper, as much as he can manage, making up for the rest with his hand. His tongue massages the underside of his cock with every movement of his head. John is so close already. His legs fall open wider to give Sherlock better access. Sherlock moans again, reaching down to fondle John’s balls with his other hand, caressing and massaging and cradling and pressing. The sight of him makes John even harder, his lips wrapped around his length and moving up and down so smoothly, sucking hard with hollowed cheeks …

He feels his orgasm approach with giant steps, but he wants something else despite how heavenly this feels.

“Sher–– ah! Sherlock, wait. Wait, oh God. Wait …”

Sherlock pulls away in a long,     s     l     o     w ,     delicious motion, and that almost does it for John. Everything inside him prickles.

“My God,” he lets out and pulls Sherlock closer to kiss him. He tastes himself on Sherlock’s tongue, the pre-come having left a salty flavour on it, but beneath that, he can only taste Sherlock.

“Why did you want me to stop?” Sherlock pants against John’s mouth.

“I want to touch you, too.”

"You could've waited another twenty seconds," Sherlock chuckles. "It's not like I'm capable of going anywhere." He gestures down to his own erection.

John grins and rolls his eyes as he runs his hand over Sherlock’s cheek and then brushes away an errant curl from his forehead. “That mouth of yours is very talented in various respects,” he tells him. “But I don’t want to come like this. Not tonight.”

"What do you want?" Sherlock's voice is husky and hoarse and at least one octave deeper than it usually sounds.

“Come here,” John breathes and pulls him closer with one hand while reaching down to line up their erections.

Sherlock curses into the kiss when John wraps his hand around both their cocks and starts stroking. They almost have the same length, which makes this a lot easier. John speeds up the movements of his hand. Their moans become more frequent, their gasps more frenetic. Sherlock is the first to push into John’s tight fist. John almost doesn’t need to because Sherlock has brought him so close to the edge already, but he joins his frantic movements anyway.

The kiss loses all coordination, and soon they're only panting against each other's lips. Sherlock buries his face in the curve of John's neck, finding his pulse point. He starts sucking and licking over it, never stopping the movement of his hips.

“Ahh! Ohhh, fuck, Sher-Sherlo…” John groans and squeezes his eyes shut when he comes. A wave of sticky semen lands on his belly and his chest. He feels as if he's falling, but he doesn't need to worry about the landing. Not this time.

He barely cares about his own release, though, and immediately tightens his grip on Sherlock’s cock, stroking him forcefully, watching how he responds to it. “Jo– John, hnngg, ahh!” Sherlock groans against his good shoulder. “Like that, yes, like that. Like that …”

He tugs at Sherlock’s hair, earning him another long, drawn out moan. He can feel how close he is. His hips’ movements are frenzied now. It doesn’t take more than three, four, five strokes before warm release coats John’s fingers and Sherlock is groaning something that vaguely sounds like John’s name into his ear.

John strokes him through his orgasm until he's shivering from the aftershocks and oversensitivity. He cards his fingers through Sherlock's hair as he collapses on John's chest, catching his breath, not unlike John himself.

John holds him close, not minding the mess that stats to dry between their bodies.

"You're bloody amazing," he whispers into the quiet room that is only filled with the sounds of their ragged inhales.

Sherlock laughs breathlessly. “I know.”

“Idiot,” John smiles fondly and kisses the tip of his nose.

Sherlock kicks him gently with his knee. “That’s my line.”

John caresses his cheek with a grin, running his thumb over his prominent cheekbone. He looks so beautiful, and John cannot believe his luck. “You got all your data, then?”

“Oh yes, a sufficient amount for now,” Sherlock agrees hastily. “But a regular repetition will be absolutely inevitable as the results always have to be up to date.”

“Regular repetition, huh?” John smirks at him. “I think that’ll be manageable.”

“Very good,” Sherlock answers and kisses him for a long moment. When they break apart, he says, “So you see, I was wrong. The me in your head was wrong.”

“Not so close to reality all of a sudden?” John asks, grinning a little.

“No.”

"In what way?"

“A dream version of this,” he gestures between the two of them. “That’s not all we get. We get the real thing. Much better.”

John smiles so wide that it almost hurts. “You’re right.”

“Obviously, I am.”

“But the real thing also currently starts to dry on our skin,” John reminds him, unable to stop grinning.

“Hmm,” Sherlock hums and yawns then, not disguising his fatigue, “we can take care of that. In five minutes.”

“You’ll be asleep in five minutes.”

“Excellent observation, John,” Sherlock mumbles drowsily and closes his already drooping lids.

John presses a kiss to his forehead and retrieves a flannel from the bathroom to wipe them both clean, making a quick job of it before re-joining Sherlock in their warm and comfortable bed. He pulls the covers over both of them and welcomes Sherlock in his arms when he moves closer, careful not to rest his hand on his healing back.

“I should’ve forced _you_ to get back up for that thing in the train carriage, just for the record,” John tells him.

"Hmm, who knows how long you would have kept everything from me if I hadn't. Those doubts you have are immeasurable," Sherlock murmurs against his chest. "You should be thankful I made you confess."

He has a point there. He had needed this. No matter the emotional strain, even though it had been horrendous.

"If you want, you can pay me back some other time," he whispers.

Some other time. John loves what that implies. A future. Their future. The rest of their lives spent together.

Relief settles in his chest. He looks forward to spending the rest of his days with this incredible man who is somehow capable of tearing down John's entire world and building it up again by merely being present in it, who has saved John's life twice now, and who, John is sure, will continue to do so. He will do the same for him.

“I’ll think about it. But if you do this again, I’m definitely going to kill you,” he answers.

“Oh, please. Killing me – that’s _so_ two years ago.”

John laughs quietly and presses a last kiss to his hair before he settles down against the pillow to sleep – with the knowledge that when he wakes up, Sherlock will still be here.

Not a broken dream, but flesh and blood. Alive and breathing.

It’s just the two of them against the rest of the world now. For real this time, as it should be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I will love you forever if you tell me what you think in the comments! <3


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